I hate you. You've never given me anything I wished for, even as a little girl and I've never been a mischievous girl either. I saw you a few days before Christmas last year sitting on the hood of a fire truck as it rode through my neighborhood. You repeatedly called out on your megaphone, "Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas! Come outside and meet Santa!"

Even though it was only about 7 or 8 at night, do you know how annoying that was??? Didn't you even think that there might be some people who were tired after a hard day's work that might've just gone to bed out of exhaustion? And you might've woken them up right when they were starting to doze off? Good thing I wasn't one of those people, you big meanie.

My brothers ran out to you in hopes of getting a toy. I saw what you ended up giving both of them - a three inch little stuffed bear wearing a red hat and holding a stuffed candy cane. Do you know what one of my brothers said when he got back inside?

"That was a fake Santa! He had black eyebrows!"

I didn't want my brothers to be too traumatized when learning the truth about you, that you're a fake, so I told them when they were really little.

Yeah, they were only about 2 and 4 years old. And they've known ever since then. Too bad I was 6 when I found out.

My aunts, great-grandmother, grandparents, parents, sister, and I had gone to the Spaghetti Factory to eat dinner when I saw you sitting in an armchair in the lounge. I think it was one of my first trips there. My dad said to me, "Oh look - it's Santa! Want to go sit on his lap?"

I had no idea what "Santa" was. In the Philippines, I was never told about a Santa. But I guessed it was you, a big man in a red suit and black boots. I had nothing else to do, so I told my dad, "Okay..."

In that friendly (do you force yourself to sound friendly?) voice of yours, you asked me, "Have you been a good girl this year?"

"Uh-huh," I replied. I got in a fight with my sister but how would you know about that? I had also taken some toys out of my first grade class and brought them home, but you wouldn't have known about that either. Those incidents weren't enough to really label me as "bad."

"What would you like for Christmas?" you asked me.

"Uh... I don't know..."

"How about a doll? Would you like a doll?"

"I don't know..."

"Or a doll house? How does a doll house sound?"

A beautiful three story pink doll house filled my imagination. I had a wild imagination back then. With a big smile on my face and my eyes shining, I said, "Okay, I want a doll house," and hopped off your lap.

During the weeks before Christmas came, I kept looking under the tree for a box big enough to hold a doll house but never saw one.

"Where's my doll house?" I finally asked my parents when Christmas was over.

"What are you talking about?" they asked, confused.

"Santa at the Spaghetti Factory told me he was giving me a doll house for Christmas."

They laughed quietly and said, "He was just saying that."

Do you know how stupid I felt? Yeah, that's when I found out you were a fake.

I will never traumatize my future children, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren the way you traumatized me. You could've at least had the decency to walk up to my dad and tell him, "Hey man, your daughter said she wants a doll house for Christmas."

-blue